Grit Lab Report

Hi Stefani,

Welcome to your personalized Grit Lab Report!

We will go week by week, reviewing everything you have told us through Poll Everywhere.

We hope this will help you reflect on what you have learned and experienced during Grit Lab.

Important note!

Sometimes, you may not have been able to respond to all polls.

If the data for one of the polls is missing, the automatic report will display NA, or ““.

Okay, let’s get started!

The first half of Grit Lab delves deep intp the passion facet of Grit.

We like to call it Choose Easy, because we think gritty people pursue what they enjoy.

Putting it graphically, gritty people tend to pursue the intersection of these four circles.

The first time we met, you told us where you were on the grit rubric.

Regarding passion you picked Stage 3: I’m actively figuring out what my interests are by trying one or more of them out in some way .

Regarding perseverance you picked .

As you know, grit grows, so don’t worry if you are not yet where you’d like to be in your grit journey.

Hopefully, this class will help you become grittier each day.

In week 2, we looked at your interests.

Interest is an emotion, and it is the opposite of boredom.

Your interests are the activities or subjects that spontaneously grab your attention.

Trying things out and seeing how you feel is the best way to refine your interests.

In week 3, we studied values, your beliefs about what is important.

You said your top three values were universalism, benevolence, and achievement.

You wrote a “This I Believe” essay, and here’s where you located it on Schwartz’s value taxonomy.

When we talked about strengths in week 4, you said your personality strength was agreeableness.

You said your top three talents were social, analytic, and spiritual.

We then talked about goal hierarchies.

You said you had a pretty good idea about your top-level goal.

We discussed self-concordance, or how much a goal aligns to your deeply held values and beliefs.

A goal you said you will be pursuing for the next six months is to finding a job after graduation .

Here is how self-concordant that goal was:

Don’t worry if your self-concordance for that particular goal is low.

It might mean that you need to reframe that goal in a way that makes it more relevant to your deep self, or change it!

Remember that self-concordance is goal specific, so other goals might be more self-concordant.

We then transitioned to the second part of Grit Lab:

Work Smart

In week 6, we looked at goal setting and planning.

You WOOPed!

For your Wish, what you wanted to accomplish, you said Deep clean .

For your Outcome, what would happen if your wish came true, you said I’ll feel relaxed .

For you Obstacle, what it is within you that stands in your way, you said I procrastinate .

For your Plan, you created this when-then plan to achieve your goal: When I get out of my meeting, then I’ll clean my wardrobe. .

Whether you changed your WOOP or stuck to that one, here’s where it landed between being a total fail, and going exactly according to plan.

And here’s how much you learned

These goals are hard, and despite our best efforts, our plans can fail.

The important thing is that you learn something along the way!

In week 7, we talked about deliberate practice.

You shared you’ve done daily practice in language .

We learned that deliberate practice requires a challenging, hyperspecific goal, maximum concentration, instant feedback, and is often done alone.

In week 8, we discussed feedback.

Even though feedback can be hard to take, it is often the key to improve. So if you want to improve, seek it actively!

You said you felt Embarrassed when receiving critical feedback, and Embarrassed when receiving positive feedback.

We then turned to learning about stress.

In week 9, you reported feeling nearly an extreme amount of stress in your life right now, the primary source of it being school, work .

We also talked about adversity and failure.

Although related, adversity and failure are different:

Adversity happens to us, whereas failure is something for which we are generally more responsible.

However, how we interpret stress and failure matters…

Interestingly, research has found that people who believe that stress can facilitate learning and growth experience enhanced performance, well-being, and health.

And failure—not achieving a particular goal—can be interpreted as “I’m learning!” and lead you to look for the lesson in that experience.

We closed the Work Smart section of the class by talking about habits.

Throughout the semester, you practice habit building using your Build-A-Habit Guide book.

You describe the habit you chose as Health .

Whether you were successful in habit building or not, this is how much you learned.

Finally, what good is grit if we do not dream for others?

So, we transitioned to Paying it Forward.

In week 10, we looked at mentors: role models that take an active role in your growth.

Hopefully, your mentor was authoritative, being both supportive and demanding.

Here’s how you described them:

You also wrote a gratitude letter to Teacher or professor .

In one word, you said it made you feel emotional .

One way of paying it forward is having a prosocial, beyond-the-self purpose. Here’s how you responded to items assessing that.

… and so quickly we arrived at the end of the semester.

Here’s how your mood varied over these weeks.

Do you notice any patterns? Is there anything that correlates with your mood?

Here you can scroll through all the quotes you wrote to summarize each class.

Your journey is your own and try not to focus on someone elses.
Being open to experience influences your interest.
Personality changes generally over time but someone's events also affect their personality.
Goal fusion gives meaning and purpose to smaller tedious tasks.
Specifying goals makes them easier to complete
Deliberate practice is hard but is needed to achieve your goals
Getting success feedback is better
Stress can be helpful but in moderation.
You need to change the way you think in order to create a habit or break one.
Having supportive and demanding role models and mentors is vital for success.
Try not to burn yourself out by constantly giving.

In the final class, we looked back to everything we’ve learned together and to how our passion and perseverance evolved during this class.

Here are the comments from your Grit Lab Teammates:

Sulaiman Yamin
Over the course of the past semester, I’ve grown to deeply admire Stefani’s ability to make others feel comfortable around her. She is one of the people at this school I have found easiest to talk to, and it is very easy to relate to her in a variety of domains. I enjoyed getting to learn about her relationship with her sister, as well as the decision making process that went through her head when deciding to stay in her home city for college. Additionally, I greatly enjoyed learning about the importance of family in her life, as well as her Honduran culture. She is an energetic person who is always willing to listen, and gives great advice regarding interpersonal relationships and staying true to yourself and your roots. Stefani's project on Honduran cooking was both a culinary adventure and a journey into her cultural roots. She focused on traditional dishes, using everyday ingredients like chicken, rice, beans, and plantains. A highlight was her tackling the challenging 'Sopa de Mariscos', a task that extended beyond two hours and transformed into a collaborative effort with her family. She reached out to relatives for advice, blending cooking with storytelling and cultural exchange. This project didn't just enhance her cooking skills; it strengthened her family connections and cultural ties. And the best part? She's earned the honor of preparing the ham for her family's Christmas dinner, a nod to her newfound culinary skills and the success of her project.
Lilah Epstein
I felt Stefani’s warmth and kindness from the first day of class. Every week I truly looked forward to sitting next to Stefani and getting into our side chats about our lives and the class material. As a psych major and someone passionate about going into medicine, it is clear how much Stefani cares about doing good for the world. Even through small actions, such as collecting our name tags at the end of class, or reviewing quiz answers with me after every weekly quiz, Stefani’s effort to help those around her is undeniable. Often speaking about her younger sister in team discussions, I have no doubt that she is the best big sister imaginable! From one Philly native to another, Stefani show’s a true sense of grit and I really enjoyed getting to know her this semester. Though she expressed some nerves before giving her presentation, Stefani did a fantastic job during her Discovery Project show and tell! Stefani took on the project of practicing her cooking skills and making food that connected her to her family and culture. It was amazing getting to see the progression of her skill development and how she mastered the preparation of difficult dishes. The photos of the food she cooked on every slide looked delicious and I am confident that the Ham she will be preparing for Christmas will be a huge success!

We hope you have emerged from Grit Lab a little grittier than you started.

Do you want to see how your grit rubric changed?

Drumroll please…

Don’t worry if the rubric doesn’t yet reflect growth. It is only a coarse measure that cannot replace your own self-reflection.

In any case, grit is not built in a day…

…remember that progress is never smooth…

…so stay passionate and persevering in the lifelong quest of choosing easy, working smart, and paying it forward.

With grit and gratitude,

Angela and the Grit Lab team.